Posts Tagged ‘Rick Riordan’

It’s amazing that I keep reading Rick Riordan books for multiple reasons. 1) They are children’s books. 2) They are all the same!

I do end up reading a lot of young adult books because they are easy reads and most of the time entertaining. I do like how Rick Riordan incorporates mythology into his story lines and I often find them informative. I read his entire Percy Jackson series and then he had The Red Pyramid (which was about Egyptian mythology. There was only one book in that series before he went back to Green/Roman mythology with The Lost Hero.

The Lost Hero is kind of a continuation of the Percy Jackson series. It’s about a new group of demi-gods that come to Camp Half-Blood, face a new prophecy that threatens the safety of the gods and the world. Jason, along with his friends Leo and Piper, have to set off to save Hera who has been kidnapped and Piper’s movie star father who has also been kidnapped. They don’t know who their enemy is but they keep being told that it is the most dangerous enemy ever. The only problem is: Jason has no memory, strange tattoos, and refers to all of the gods by their Roman names instead of their Greek names. Oh, and Percy Jackson is missing so Annabeth has to go look for him (not that that really has much to do with the storyline, but they like to randomly remind the audience of it throughout the book).

In The Lost Hero, much like the Percy Jackson books, there are three demigods that are off to save the world. Jason is the son of Zeus/Jupiter, Piper is the daughter of Aphrodite, and Leo is the son of Hephaestus. Jason is the leader of the pack, even though he doesn’t have his memory, and often surprises himself with what he is capable of. Leo can harness fire and build almost anything. And Piper can convince people to do things that they don’t want to with charmspeak.

One thing that I liked about the Percy Jackson books was that Annabeth was actually a hero in her own right. Yes, she followed Percy around, but she was often the brains of the operation and could hold her own in battle. But in The Lost Hero, Piper is often in need of being rescued and her “power” is that of talking people into things. How stereotypical is that? The girl is the one that has the power of talking men into doing things.

All throughout the book, all of the characters are saying how important Piper is to the journey. And yes, she does play an important role in the end. But it bothered me that for most of the book, she needed rescuing or she was swooning over Jason.

In the Percy Jackson books, Annabeth was her own character. But in The Lost Hero, Piper was usually only talked about in her relation to men, whether it be Jason or her movie star father.

The book was entertaining for what is was. It’s a quick read and has some good information about Greek and Roman mythology. It’s rather predictable, but I usually expect children’s books to be.